Re: Svn-control file owner/perms (for /etc): FSVS? Others?

Hi Matt.

I asked a very similar question about two months ago. My question referred to asvn which is a script provided by subversion to keep permissions on files kept in the svn repository. I found it lacking in information in using it properly to maintain file permissions and especially with symbolic links in the /etc directory. I also found a perl script that is similar to asvn called ssvn, but the developer is not actively devloping said perl script any longer. I basically quit upon the idea of using subversion with /etc on my servers due to the lack of file system permission integration with svn. You might want to try using svk. You can also find my discussion about using asvn with /etc that Ryan Schmidt so helpfully assisted me with. He recommended in the end that I try using fsvs, but again I found it is still in development and not thoroughly documented, and it coud pan out like the meta-data patch which is no longer being developed. That might have been the best
 hope for using svn with /etc.
 I for one would be very interested in seeing the script that your co-worker developed for preserving file permissions with subversion. I think it would be great to open source the script because there are many who would possibly like to have the ability to keep their system files under subversion.
I can tell you that I set up a subversion server with multiple repositories that we could have used at work to keep (hp-ux/solaris/linux) /etc files, and I tried using both asvn and ssvn to manage permissions on. I tried first using a linux server in vmware, but it was not until I tried keeping my workstation's /etc under subversion that I discovered how my file permissions became totally ruined. I could never truly get my permissions back to their proper state and had to do a backup of my files and reinstall my workstation.

Matt England <mengland@mengland.net> wrote: I'm looking to control file-system changes with Subversion, and maintain
the ownership/group/permissions meta-data from each file in the filesystem
properly.

For example: I want to put /etc (for Linux/Unix/BSD hosts) under Subversion
control on many my organization's host servers, but I don't want to botch
up the ownership/permission control of all the files in /etc (eg, turning
off /etc/hosts world-reading permission is a _bad_ thing, among many other
potentialy gotchyas).

Last I knew, Subversion had no near-term plans to attempt to add features
to preserver "original meta data" control for these sorts of
things. However, I get the impression that FSVS is trying to do this:

http://fsvs.tigris.org/

...but I'm not sure of it's maturity or applicability for my organization
currently.

One of my co-workers says he has done this before by operating a script
that essentially reads the ownership/group/permission data at the time of
"import" into a repo, and sets properties associated with those values for
each file, and then "resets" these values every time a file is checked
out. plan on using this script's capability to do this (in essence, with
a home-grown thing) unless I hear suggestions otherwise.

Also, if the community here would like to see said script open-sourced and
provided to the public, let us know, and we can probably accommodate. One
note: I may want to take care to note duplicate too much stuff from what
FSVS or others might be doing.

Thanks for any help,
-Matt

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